


Into Nothing

by Starveined



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Disturbing Metaphors, Graphic Suicide, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, Nonbinary Henry, Post-Valiant Hero Ending | VH (Henry Stickmin), Selectively Mute Henry Stickmin, Self-Harm, Suicide, They/Themry, Vomiting, With A Twist, metaphorical gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starveined/pseuds/Starveined
Summary: After a week of existing alone in the universe, Henry finally comes to realize something.
Relationships: Charles Calvin/Henry Stickmin, Stickvin - Relationship
Comments: 20
Kudos: 56





	Into Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags, and stay safe out there.

It had been a week, seven days. 168 hours, 10080 minutes, 604800 seconds that Henry had been alive past what they should have been dealt. The universe disgusted them. If it needed to take a life, so be it. If it needed to take the life of an outsider on the Toppat orbital station specifically, that was fine. But why. Why had it taken _him_. Shouldn’t the goal of reality be to purge everything rotten and to preserve and uphold all that was good? Henry didn’t understand.

Charles was a beacon, a blindingly brilliant example of what should be strived for. He was plated in gold, a flowering branch on a dead tree, a pristine jut of stone breaking the current of a river of pestilence and by every definition, perfect. But Henry? They’d been defiled from the start, fundamentally wrong inside and leaving behind everything they’d ever touched to decay. Yes, that had to be it. Charles had to die because of how tangled up with one another they’d become. They’d only known each other for just under a year, but it felt like a thousand lifetimes; plenty for Henry’s disease to spread and settle deep in Charles’ bones. Every touch had been a devastating breach of containment, slowly turning warm, scarred skin cold and black with rot. Each of their kisses had been corrosive, eating through soft welcoming lips until all that was left for Henry to express their love to were cracked teeth and receding gums.

But Charles had never seemed to care. He insisted, time after time, that Henry was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Was the whole world blind? How did nobody else notice? Henry knew; they could see as their love deteriorated at their side, but since it had been imperceivable to everyone around them, they had selfishly stayed. Nothing but a pathetic insect, drawn to flame; a ravenous parasite that had bled a hero dry until all that was left was dust.

Dust in the sky, dust in the stars. That’s all that Charles was now. Henry sat, gazing up at it now, tears freely flowing even as their throat cinched shut and locked them into silence. From the second their partner had been stolen, Henry had not slept. Their eyes perpetually stung and each of their thoughts made them dizzy, but their fear of what might await them in the darkness was more than enough motivation to continue pressing forward. They hadn’t eaten, either; because if your every second is already spent in the unrelenting jaws of nausea, teeth sinking in and tearing flesh away from bone, there is no time for food. That was fine, though, the way their knees instinctually moved to buckle each time they stood served as some of the past week’s best entertainment. Finally they had not spoken; not a single word, or a single sign, or even a hastily scribbled note to communicate the most basic of information.

Why bother, anyway? Nothing they could say would change the course of history or meaningfully impact the future, so they might as well save the energy, keep their jaws and hands locked and still. In addition, there was no longer anyone around to hear them. Charles had been the one person in their life, the singular being that they could lean on. They were documented as deceased, after all, and had to stay quiet lest someone come after them again. Henry wished and wished and wished until it hurt that it was true, that they really were dead and that this was hell. Would they even be able to tell if it was? Perhaps it was better if they couldn’t. If they knew that this was it, that nothing here could feel pain as they could, they would start to hurt people even more than they already did just by existing.

The night sky split above them, veins of harsh light stealing the beauty away from the stars and a low surge of sound drowning out Henry’s thoughts for a singular, merciful moment. They hardly reacted when the rain came, cold and continuous as it soaked their hair flat and slipped beneath their clothes to trickle down their spine. They were forced to look down to protect their eyes from the falling droplets, gaze landing on the stone that marked the end. Of Charles, and of them. Their eyes traced the carved letters of his name, the years he’d been brought into the world and the one in which he’d been torn from it. This year. This month. Right now. It still felt like now. It _was_ now. Charles was dead, forever, and Henry would stay broken in stasis, _forever_.

They were shivering now, the cold starting to set in. Blackness slowly crept over their vision, and they felt a moment of fear. If they closed their eyes, they would sleep. And if they slept, they would dream. And if they dreamt, it would… be no different, really, would it? They were spending their every waking moment reliving what had happened and conjuring fantasies of how it could have somehow been worse. Nightmares would be the same, and their head hurt so badly that escape into one had potential to introduce different sources of pain to distract from their perception within a deteriorating, skin-sealed prison.

Henry breathed out heavily, moving their legs out from under them and feeling water rush in to fill the small dips their knees had made in the grass of the clifftop. Their breath fogged in the air as they thumped down onto a shoulder, wincing at the impact but only out of reflex; not because they cared at all. Their clothes clung to their frame, a sodden blanket of surrendering to see them into the dark.

Henry’s eyes were closed, now, but they could still see. Blinding smiles, warm eyes, strong shoulders left bare after jackets had been lent. But then the mouths were dribbling blood, the eyes had already accepted their fate, and everything else was gone after that. Fire, but no noise. So quiet and so black, so quickly after they had lost their only anchor. Maybe that was the answer, then. That the universe didn’t actually care either way and the only thing keeping them rooted here now was their own foolish inaction.

“Finally.”

Henry was startled; there shouldn’t have been anyone else on this hill. And… there wasn’t. Because this was not a memorial site, but an ambiguous space of soft colors and comfortably dim light. They could feel that they were standing, now, and sensed ground beneath their feet, but when they looked down it appeared as if they were supported by nothing.

“If only you could have gone to sleep sooner, I wouldn’t have had to wait so long to tell you.”

Henry blinked, and the voice snapped from being foreign to painfully familiar in an instant. They whipped around, and there he was. They could no longer move, though, because of being paralyzed from internal or external sources they could not tell.

“Hey, it’s okay. Just listen to me, alright?”

Henry felt hot tears fall down their face, convinced that their own body was trying to fracture itself to pieces in an attempt to snuff them out for good. If only they could help, and speed the process up. Snap bones away from spine and sternum one by one until they were free of their ‘cage’ of ribs, fashion torn skin into wings, bleed a new soul into being, and fly away. But they could do none of that. They could only stand, cry, and hear the words that were being said to them.

“I didn’t need time to think about it before knowing that I was content to have saving you be the last thing I ever did.” Blinding smile, warm eyes. “So please, Hen. Don’t let it go to waste. I want you to be happy.”

They could move again. They bolted upright, choking on rain and tearing up handfuls of drowning grass. No, no, no. That wasn’t real, _Charles_ wasn’t real. Not anymore. They were still crying, but in earnest now, abdomen convulsing with a combination of sobs and dry heaves. All they had left to give was a trickle of searing bile, upon which they coughed and desperately tried to wash away with the rain. Henry, desperate, brought their hands up to their face and raked their nails down it with all of the force they could muster. The sting felt good, familiar. 

It was so cold, so quiet out here. The only noises the rainfall, their own hoarse breaths, and the blood roaring in their ears. Okay. So, Charles wanted them to be happy, huh? As much as they had always refused to believe in any sort of god or afterlife, Henry was lost on why they would have simply dreamed of encouragement. How could that have been possible, if their every thought for the past week had wanted them dead?

Something clicked in their mind, then, and they lifted their head. If Charles was alive in some mythical paradise or only in their memories didn’t matter. He would have wanted them to be happy, that much they could be sure was true. And no matter where Charles was now, Henry would not be joining him. They’d either go to any sort of hell that existed or become nothing, so it made no difference as Charles would, clearly, be an angel if such things really were after all. And that angel wanted them to be happy.

Henry felt sick. How could they have been so selfish, putting themself through this many days of suffering when Charles’ dying wish was for them to be happy? They were disgusting, and had failed him. But they took a deep, shuddering breath, because in spite of that, they could try to make it up to him by finally putting this all to a stop. For him, they would allow themself the happiness they did not deserve.

They rifled around in the small bag they’d brought with them, hands trembling and numb from the cold. When they found what they were looking for it was a bit hard to manipulate the small object into opening even if they were normally dexterous with intricate objects, but small failures no longer meant anything. They pushed their sleeves up to their elbows, and brought the metal to heavily scarred flesh that had seen this same situation many times before. But this was the last, Henry thought, relieved. They’d been running out of places to put new marks.

Perhaps a razor would have been more convenient, or a dagger would have been more cinematic, but the pocket knife would have to do. It was duller than they would have liked, requiring several passes and a bit of rough sawing to get the desired effect. Henry, without any light to go by, had to determine their success from touch alone. They traced the length of the new lesion along the underside of their forearm, and shivered in relief at the heat against their stinging and frigid fingertips. Wet warmth dripped incessantly down; a cascade of absolution to see them off. Henry held their fingers to the bloodflow for a few more moments to make sure it wasn’t slowing before determinedly moving on to the other arm.

You are supposed to open your wrists lengthwise if you don’t plan on coming back from your injuries; Henry knew very well. Going horizontally only breaks the significant vein at a single point, but if you chase it down with your blade it will be forced to pour your life out and be near impossible to stitch shut. So, it was a good thing that Henry did not want these wounds to heal. They dropped the knife once satisfied, hands slick and comfortably warm. They let out a long breath, heart slowing as serenity started to settle over them at last.

How long does it take to bleed out? Minutes, hours? Henry supposed it didn’t matter. They’d beat the sunrise on their way out, and that was good enough for them. The rain fell upon the new faults in their skin, mixing with their blood and kindly making its pitiful attempts to clot obsolete. They would sit in this spot, in the darkness and rain, and regress into nothing.

Henry slowly turned their face to the sky with what little they had left, feeling like they could finally see the full beauty of the stars again, and smiled.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Come on love, breathe. You’re safe, you’re with me.”

Henry did not feel good. Their heart was pounding in their chest and their lungs burned like they hadn’t known a breath in minutes despite the heavy pants wracking their body. All they could feel was the rain, the cold, the sting, the anguish. He was gone and now they were too.

“Hen.” A soft shush sounded at their ear, followed by a featherlight kiss to the adjacent temple. “I’m going to turn a light on, stay with me here.”

Their arms hurt. They’d had to have scraped bone with how deep they’d dug. Why weren’t they dying faster? This wasn’t fair.

And then it was bright. Their eyes flew open, breathing frantic, but it didn’t take them much time to realize that what was once blinding behind closed eyes was only a dim lamp. And it was warm here, very warm. Warm light, warm blankets, and… warm eyes.

Henry wanted to cry, then noticed that they already were and didn’t bother trying to intervene. They sat up a second later with a jolt of panic, but quickly regretted the decision as vertigo coiled around their skull and squeezed. They lifted their wrists into view through it, though, needing to make sure. And as expected, they were fine. No gashes, no blood. Only faded scars from past eras, healed by countless kisses and wandering fingertips.

But now the arms of the same person responsible were winding around their midsection and gently tugging them over to be settled into a lap. Henry sniffled, surrendering to the throbbing in their head and falling forward onto Charles’ chest. He was there, time after time. Through every night, no matter how bad it got. They lived on base together, life a beautiful and chaotic tangle of missions and infatuation with one another.

“Would you like to tell me about it?” Fingers came to comb through Henry’s mess of sweaty hair, clearly not caring about their less than ideal state.

They swallowed thickly, trying to form an adequate response. As per usual, the details were quickly becoming lost to them. A lifetime of conjured memories slipping through the cracks left them feeling like they’d lost something important, but perhaps that was for the best. “You died,” they started out, voice weak and hoarse, “Saving me.”

Charles moved his hand down to rub circles between Henry’s shoulder blades, quickly succeeding in getting the remaining tension to melt from their body. “And I would,” he murmured, “But not if I could’ve fought my way out to save us both. And, last time I checked,” he whispered, “I’m still fighting for us every day.”

Henry made an involuntary noise of emotion, struggling until they were sitting up enough to look their partner in the eyes. “...Then, I died too. On purpose.”

Charles didn’t react for a moment, expression somber, but a hand softly gripped them by the jaw soon enough. “Would you ever want to die if I was there with you?”

Henry immediately shook their head.

Charles leaned in, brushing their lips together in a mere suggestion of a kiss. “Then you can feel safe now, because I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, uh, I'm sorry, for all of that. Writing fluff next to heal myself for sure.
> 
> Now, if any confusion arose from how I formatted this, I understand and would like to explain. Each Henry I wrote, the VH one from the majority of the work and the SBO one at the end, are equally real. In my mind, whenever a Henry in the multiverse dies, their life dissolves into another by manifesting as a dream for the resident Hen of a different universe; obviously most often a horrible nightmare. They don't know this, though. To them, these glimpses into the lives of their alternates are nothing but dreams.
> 
> However if it makes you feel better to just say that it was only a dream and not real at all, then go for it!


End file.
